Communicating
by The Reel Lifer
Summary: In the future...when someone knocks on a guy's door in the middle of the night and says they want to talk, it's usually a pickup line. Beetle talks to Booster. SLASH.


Title: Communicating  
Author: Doctor V  
Pairing: Ted Kord/Booster Gold  
Rating: R?  
This is probably AU from continuity, but it's also very early in the Blue & Gold history, like right after they meet.  
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**Communicating**

The new kid is good. Booster Gold, or Michael Carter he reveals over the same couple beers that Beetle introduces himself as Ted Kord, has them all fooled. All of them but Ted, and he only knows because Michael got drunk enough to slip up a little. 

Ted is pretty impressed, actually. It has to take a tremendous amount of effort, as well as sheer strength of personality, to keep up the act. 

So he finds himself standing outside Booster Gold's door and knocking, trying to think of an excuse to be there besides his real intent. Then Michael is peering at him sleepily and Ted says something about wanting to talk, so the time traveler covers a yawn with one hand and waves him in with the other. Ted has never really seen the man's room before and isn't sure what to expect, but it turns out to be just like any other room, only with less knick-knacks laying around. 

"What's up?" Booster asks around another yawn, and Ted's mind suddenly goes blank. He was all set to confront Booster Gold, but now he's faced with a sleepy, tousle-haired Michael Carter and he doesn't know where to begin. 

Then he sees it peeking out from under Booster's bed. 

He crouches down and pulls it out, silently reading the cover. Glancing up at Michael, he sees worry on the man's face as he stands up. 

Holding up the book, Ted raises his eyebrows inquiringly. "For beginning readers?" 

Michael's expression as he hangs his head is so miserable that Ted feels a little like he's just kicked a puppy. He tosses the book on Michael's bed and reaches over to squeeze the man's shoulder. When he looks up, Ted looks him in the eye and says gently, "I wanted to talk to you." 

"How...?" Michael trails off, looking worried and embarrassed. 

Ted can't help but grin as he remembers the incident that first clued him in and had him on the lookout for more inconsistencies. "A few weeks ago," he says. "You were drunk and...I don't know what you called that guy, but it didn't sound very flattering." Ted gives him a pointed look. "Or like any language I've heard of. So then it hit me: I can barely read Shakespeare in the original language, how the hell can you even understand _us_." 

Groaning, Michael hangs his head again and Ted almost can't bring himself to add it, but he finds himself wanting to help. "Also, your accent slipped a little. I know what a Gotham accent sounds like, and that wasn't it." 

"Not for a few hundred years," Michael sighs, then lifts his head to look at Ted. His expression is almost pained. "When I found out I'd be meeting Batman I went to Gotham out of costume and just _listened_ for _hours_." 

"And you pulled it off great." Ted tells him, grinning. "When I figured it out I was impressed. That had to take a lot of effort. I never even _suspected_ when I first met you. Has anyone else...?" 

"Besides you? No one," Michael admits, smiling wryly. "At least no one said anything." 

"So when you first got here, how did you--?" 

"TV mostly." He shrugs. "Then when I thought I had a handle on the language and culture I went out and interacted with people." 

"How'd that work?" 

Michael winces a little. "Ah, there were a few more...taboos than I realized. But other than that, fine." 

"Taboos?" Ted grins at him. "You didn't walk around naked, did you?" 

Michael sticks his tongue out at him then turns away, throwing his arms up in exasperation. "I flirted with a guy. In the future, it's no big deal to be...to be bisexual. It's normal! But this century is so narrow-minded. Sometimes it seems like it'd be more acceptable for me to list 'clubbing baby seals' as a hobby than admit I...swing both ways." 

There is a moment of silence following Michael's outburst, then Ted asks, "Clubbing baby seals is your hobby?" 

"No! I just--" Michael cuts himself off with a snort, then turns back to him and laughs. 

Ted laughs with him, and suddenly everything is okay again. Michael "Booster" Carter taught himself American English and culture with television and is currently relearning how to read, but he doesn't club baby seals so that doesn't matter. 

He sits on Michael's bed and moves the "beginning reader" book to the nightstand, then leans forward eagerly and asks, "So can you tell me about the future?" 

Rolling his eyes, Michael sits next to him. "What do you want to know?" 

"I don't know, anything." 

"Okay... In the future," Michael pauses to glance at him, and smirks a little, "when someone knocks on a guy's door in the middle of the night and says they want to talk, it's usually a pick-up line." 

Ted chuckles a little. "So you opened the door hoping to get lucky?" 

"Hope springs eternal." Michael murmurs, only half joking. There is an odd look on his face as he searches Ted's for something. 

Suddenly his mouth is a little dry and Ted has to swallow. "I'm not...I've never..." 

But Michael's hand is on his knee and he's leaning in to whisper in Ted's ear, "It's a scientific fact that most people are bisexual, it just isn't encouraged in this century." Then the caress of his voice is replaced by his lips and Ted finds himself willing to take his word for it, because he's from the future and probably knows what he's talking about and anyway Michael's hand is moving up his thigh and he can't think of any good reason for it not to be. 

So there isn't any protest as Ted lets himself fall back on the bed with Michael on top of him, and certainly no complaint when he finds himself kissing the man. The hand skillfully removing his pants makes up for the distinct lack of breasts, and somehow it's even kind of hot without the breasts in a weird never-done-this way. 

Then he's naked, and Michael's naked, and there are hands and Michael's mouth so it makes sense to touch everything within reach, because he's suddenly very open to new experiences. New experiences are wrapping his legs around Michael's as they move together, and grabbing Michael's enviable ass to pull him closer, and listening to him gasp futuristic words he's never heard but thinks are perfect for sex, and having sex with Michael. 

A hand is in his hair tilting his head back for easier access to his mouth, then his jaw, his ears, his neck, and another hand is pinching a nipple, then stroking his side, his hip, his leg, and Michael is whispering filthy sweet nothings Ted can't understand when he's shuddering and coming and clinging tightly. Ted thinks the future must be some sort of strange and wonderful place if this is the kind of sex you get from wanting to talk to someone. 

He pets Michael's hair as the man snuggles against him, head resting on Ted's chest and leg thrown over Ted's. The new kid is _really_ good, Ted decides, and vows to do his best to help him fit in. 

But the pick-up lines of the future can stay. 


End file.
